Today, (for no particular reason), I started thinking about something my Mom said when I first came out of the religious closet to her. I told her that I no longer believed in Christianity, and she automatically assumed that this was due to my experiences in the army. At the time, I immediately said "no", but now I realize that this may have played a role in the change of my beliefs... just not in the way that she meant.

When I first told her that I no longer believed in Christianity and the bible (though I was still a Deist at the time), her first response was something along the lines of "I know that you have experienced some horrible things...". While I thought nothing of it at the time, I now find it interesting that she (and most other Christians) assume that I lost faith once I saw the dark side of humanity for myself. To her (and them), the reason for my abandoning Christianity was somewhere between anger at God and assuming that such evil could not exist in a world with a God.

My immediate (and mostly correct) response was, "No, I don't disbelieve because of my time in war." But to tell the truth, my disbelief DID start with my wartime experiences... just not in the way that they expected. I saw fellow Christians killed by Muslims, dealt death to Muslims, and had some very close calls with death myself at the hands of these Muslims. In my mind at the time, this did not "show me the ugly side of humanity and convince me there is no god", rather, it strengthened my belief. Seeing close personal friends suffer and die at the hands of "infidels" only confirmed to me that Christianity, while imperfect, was far better than the alternatives.

This, combined with my very close calls with death convinced me that I needed to "get right with God". As such, I started reading the Bible and analyzing passages. I started doing research into the Bible and what it meant. I did all the things that the churches say you should do. The only problem was that once I started learning about my religion, doubts and questions inevitably popped up. In the end, the part of my mind that is dedicated to the scientific principles could not be silenced by the part of my brain that was dedicated to what I already "knew" and believed. I started subjecting my own religion to the same scrutiny that I subjected other religions to, and in the end, I came out an atheist.

So to finally and completely answer my mom's response of, "I know you went through some horrible stuff, but that is not justification to turn from God", I say this: I do not turn from God because I saw the evil side of humanity, I turn from God because I saw his human side, and there is nothing else left.

When I was 6 years old my mother began dating a man who I will call Bill. She would later marry him in a relationship that lasted throughout my childhood and adolescence. She was in a vulnerable situation, as my biological father had walked out on her and left her with three kids to raise on her own. "Bill" was at first seemingly normal, but definitely a bit strange. Not a personality that I personally would trust my own children with, but that's besides the point. To make a long story short, Bill became worse and worse throughout the years, becoming increasingly more religious. He was what I call a fundamentalist. As the youngest, I was the one attacked most towards the end of his and my mother's relationship--after my older siblings had left home, I was left alone with an increasingly bitter, religious, and abusive man whom I had known as my father figure from a young girl.

When I was young, Bill tried to get us into Christianity. Before his worst days, he told us things like we were sinners, and without him we probably would've gone to hell, or something like that. I was baptized as a young teenager and attended church. All throughout childhood I remember Bill was emotionally abusive--he would often give me the "silent treatment"--and I would constantly be trying to perceive his mood--when he was in a bad mood and wouldn't talk to me or was mean, he made me think I had done something horrible. When I cleaned excessively or did other ridiculous things, I gained his approval and he was kind. For a couple hours. Or days. As long as he wanted to play with me. I was a prisoner to his mood. With his devout Christianity he convinced me psychologically that he was a godly presence I believe, and that he was the one to judge me. God was angry, and judgmental. I was never good enough. There was one instance where, as a young teen, I was listening to the song "Rape me" by Nirvana. It was 8:30 at night and my mom wasn't home. Drunk, he yelled I better go to bed--or he would rape me, somehow. Years later when I confronted him in front of my mother, he vehemently denied this and acted like I was crazy and evil. My mother did and said nothing to defend me.

Around 15-16 I became very troubled. I experienced sexual assault and ran away multiple times, sustaining more sexual trauma while on the streets. I used crack cocaine and sold myself for it. I was in and out of psychiatric hospitals, once for an attempted suicide after the first sexual assault, and once again for running away and threatening suicide to police officers. Bill claimed I had demons and that my older sister's dabble with Wicca when she was a teen had brought the demons into the house.

Religion is a powerful tool which people use to control others.On one particularly traumatic evening while my mother was again away on vacation, Bill came at me with one of his nastiest attacks. All evening, as he drank more and more gin, he called me names like whore and bitch, and asked me if I loved him, calling me on my cell phone from the next room. He hung my underwear over the toilet and peed in it, leaving the toilet unflushed and the lid up. He sent me a message saying look in the toilet. Later I went to my room, very scared, and called a woman I knew. He began screaming my name--I will never forget how frightening and angry his voice was--how full of rage. He came to my room, calling me a piece of shit and a whore and the rest, kicked open my door and knocked my cell phone to the floor. At that time my friend called the police, but I didn't answer their calls. I climbed out the window, and ran a mile without thinking I was so scared. I called a man I knew, one of the only people who I knew that could help me, though the relationship was inappropriate. I stayed at his house. My mother was ambivalent, and basically told me the next morning that Bill was so sorry and that I should go home. She didn't care, though later during her divorce she used my story without the blink of an eye.

As their relationship took a turn for the worse, his rage was turned on me more and more--I was the cause of the divorce, it was me with my demonic behavior and my running away. My mother continued to go on vacation and left me alone with this terrorist. He sent emails to my mother and her family members saying that we were sinful women--he sent passages from the bible which desecrated women and claimed how evil and sinful women were. He called my mother and sang an insane sounding song on her voicemail--singing that she was Jezebel. These were very scary times. They continued to live together in the house in separate bedrooms--until that one fateful night he threw alcohol into her face and in her eyes. Despite the fact that she was angry at me, I called the cops, and she took the story to the commissioner's office. The next day, the coward was gone. Afraid of the police I guess. All along I mistrusted Bill, but no one listened to me. He brainwashed me with religion, using it like a tool to gain power over people--including my grandparents who are Christians as well, not radical of course like him, but Christians. They still have contact with Bill--at one point, when I told my grandfather that Bill was abusive, he said "well you bring it out in him". Bill manipulated them like he did me. I cannot say how much pain I have experienced in the past few years.

My mother's new boyfriend who is now living with us is Christian and sometimes imparts his beliefs of other people--which I consider discrimination. I believe in God, but there is this deep resentment, this deep hate of Christianity. I don't know what to do. No one understands this feeling--even my own boyfriend was arguing about why I wouldn't bring out potential children to church. He didn't seem to understand the resentment I have. In fact, when I bring it up with my mother or my boyfriend, they usually insinuate I should forget it, and move on. I'm stuck, though I'm in school and work and all that, I still feel so stuck. Religion is a powerful tool which people use to control others.

My soul cannot handle any more religion. It offends me and breaks me down. Immediately religion brings me to a place of unfounded fear, guilt and neurosis. As a child my life was dictated by the Bible. My parents spanked me because the Bible says, "spare the rod, spoil the child." I have learned that many children have been abused, many beaten to death, in christian/catholic households because of this verse. The impression I get from the stories in the Bible are that God will punish anyone at anytime for crimes that other people committed, whether you were good (just to test you), whether you were bad, or whether you simply misunderstood something that God was supposedly trying to say. I always "knew" (because I was told) that someday God was going to return on a "glorious day" when horrible plagues would be sent to earth, people would be tormented, satan was let loose, and pregnant women would experience the worst pain anyone has ever endured. 50% of all human beings would be sent to eternal torment and 50% to eternal bliss, based off of what religion you chose while on earth. Knowing this world was going to end, I was afraid of having children because of end times but at the same time, that thought would bring me immense guilt when I would envision the life my child could have had if maybe the Bible was wrong, and the end times were not going to actually happen. All of this fear and terror that deeply affected my life over one book called "Revelations," that doesn't make sense anyway. I was later to discover that there were actually many stories about end times predictions circulating in that time period, each as crazy and baseless as the one that made it into the Bible. For my whole life, my life has been dictated by baseless assertions. Now I have a deep appreciation for things that I know are real, that I can see, feel or touch; things that can be verified. I have a growing disdain for baseless assertions.

Jesus said very specifically, "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Because of this verse in the Bible my mother was told that her schizophrenic/bipolar disorder was caused by her lack of faith (despite the fact that it was simply inherited from her mother). She was told it is a "sin" to take medicine because that shows a lack of faith in Jesus's promise. She was told only to pray, believe, and be healed. This led to a life for me and my brothers that consisted of multiple daily outbursts of her screaming and me and my brothers being yelled at for something innocent, random, or even nothing at all. Watching my mother take out a knife and try to kill my dad, as well as try to take her own life multiple times late at night throughout my childhood. On many occasions there would be groups of people coming over to "lay hands" on her, with no affect. They would perform exorcisms on her as well. She would tell us she hates us repeatedly, and slam a binder on my older brother's head. Many times she would lock us in the basement for hours. She showed severe, irrational favoritism to my youngest brother. One day she kidnapped my youngest brother and took him to Canada for about a week, leaving the rest of us at home alone until my dad came home from work. The day she left was my second youngest brother’s birthday, who at the time longed for my mother’s approval so desperately that he actually asked if she could take him instead. My mother said sharply, "no, I don't want you, I only want to bring Joey." The pain of experiencing rejection like that at such a young age is inconceivable to me.

The Bible has been an unhealthy, misguiding dictator in my family, and in my life. I don't care what type or "flavor" of christianity or catholicism it is, it comes from the same book, and the same principle of faith. Which demands belief without evidence and the acceptance of baseless assertions regardless of whether they make sense to your own mind, or personal sense of morality and justice.

Now, since I became a teenager, my family was finally able to break free from the verses spoken by Jesus in the New Testament, and my mom began to take mental illness medication. She is now very loving, dependable and happy. If it weren't for religion or the Bible, my mom could have been taking medicine all along. Proven scientific facts and years of dedicated research have saved my family. Logic has helped to repair the years of damage from the baseless claims of the Bible, religion, and pastors who pretended so confidently to know things they knew nothing about.

The Bible has been an unhealthy, misguiding dictator in my family, and in my life. I remember when I was about 6 years old, I was sitting on the swingset in our backyard with my oldest brother who was 8 years old. We sat there swinging silently, taking in the sounds coming from inside the house of our mother screaming at the top of her lungs (she would scream for hours at a time, everyday so it was nothing new), and throwing things at my two younger brothers who were still inside the house. My older brother turned and looked at me and said something that neither of us had mentioned until that point, it brought a painfully stunning realization that caused a rush of adrenaline to flow through my body, he said, "this is child abuse, you know?" The words hit me like a dart, bringing both pain and healing at the same time. For the first time, I realized this wasn't normal, most families weren't like this. The only way my body would allow me to react was to protect myself, become defensive, and say, "duh, of course I knew that," with an attitude that implied "don't mention it again.”

A paralleled situation occurred later in adulthood when my older brother told me, "This religion stuff isn't true, none of it is." At the time, I only knew how to react with defensiveness and denial. But still the thought hit me like a dart, bringing both pain and healing at the same time. I am still feeling the impact of those words. After months of agonizing research, examining both sides of the arguments and comparing it to what I feel and know about reality, it had finally sunk in, he was right yet again.

So when someone says to me, “We love Jesus, why don’t you? You should be passionate for Jesus!” It instantly disseminates any joy, hope, love or peace that I’ve worked very hard to build up. Christians are quick to tell me that I’m overreacting, and over thinking the problems of religion. But I can’t help to think that it is they who aren’t thinking about it enough. But it never fails, my disbelief of religion only serves to reignite their own personal passion, and they instantly have a “revival for Jesus” which only serves to distance me further from anyone around me. I know that at that moment, that person is capable of looking at me, and believing that I deserve the eternal torment they believe is coming to me, from what they believe is a just God.

I was raised as a Chrsitian my whole life and have lived dedicated to god. When I was 14 my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. I prayed for two years, and when I was 17 she passed away. I spent my entire time in high school taking care of her -- waking up to help her go to the restroom -- and I prayed that god would save her. He never showed. I asked myself over and over how a prefect and loving god could do this.

I am sick of people telling me "It's god's plan" or "I can't tell you why these things happen, it's just life."

What the hell is the point of religion if it can't answer the toughest and most imoportant questions in life? I want to know why this happened! Where God was during this time? Why is religion here if it doesn't help?

If you are a Christian I want to talk, cause aren't you supposed to help those who are struggling? And, I want a non-christian point of view on this matter.

I'm sick of wondering what is right. Someone help me. This is my final attempt.

I’d like to discuss something which I am yet to see mentioned amongst ex-Christians. It is the Bible’s viewpoint on rewards in Heaven. Throughout my journey in quizzing the nature of the Bible in certain quarters, the reward system horrifies me, only to be beaten by the horrific nature of Hell, punishment and justice.

In particular, the Five Crowns are often talked about. These are:

The Crown of Righteousness

The Incorruptible Crown

The Crown of Life

The Crown of Rejoicing

The Crown of Glory

And I’d like to add this too:

and each one will receive His own reward ACCORDING TO HIS OWN LABOR. (1 Corinthians 3:8)

This is a massive problem, coming into direct conflict with my personality, as I’m sure it will for many of you too. Throughout my mere 20 years on this Earth, I’ve received many awards and rewards for academic and extra-curricular activities. I’m not a straight A student, but I’ve always modelled myself on working damn hard and that even if the end result is not what I had hoped, I can always say that I put 100% effort into it.
Yet each time I picked up a certificate, a thank you card, a monetary gift, it was always done through humbleness and humility. I’m not keen on rewards, because any good act that I do, I choose to do because any decent person would do it anyway.

To my disgust, I see countless Christians on the internet using these rewards as a motivation to be ‘good’. And in turn, they claim that because they are reborn in Christ, they are new creatures doing God’s work. Incentives can spur people on to do great things, let me clear that bit up. However, to constantly recite it as a sort of mantra is disturbing.

Two years ago, I decided to go on a weight loss journey. I used the incentive of my friends seeing me looking sharp, trendy, slim and lean. However, after I had achieved my weight goal, it was difficult to find a source of motivation. My friends became used to the way I looked and behaved about nutrition and exercise. I looked for a new goal. I decided that I could carry on because if I didn’t, I would regain all my weight, look ugly and once again, become the centre of mockery. However, this is a terrible way to make a decision on health. I concluded after watching much of The Biggest Loser with Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels that I should carry on with being healthy, because it is the RIGHT thing to do for my body and mind. It was a choice to change my lifestyle.

Now, I shall refer back to the idea of rewards and doing good deeds. For every human being that is living now and in the future, doing good deeds should be done because it is the RIGHT thing to do. Empathy is an emotion I often use when doing a kind act. I try to imagine how the other person is feeling and do something in return to help them. We know it is the right thing to do because there are no negative consequences, only positive consequences which are often found through a simple ‘thank you’, a hug, a kiss, a favour returned. You get the idea anyway. Animals have been doing this in herds and packs for millions of years, helping each other to survive, and to add, assist those we have formed attachments to. It’s in our nature. Psychology on our behaviour and attitudes have proven this.

I fear disappointment from those around me if I have not done something good. It is through that disappointment that I strive to be better, almost a sort of retributive injection to better myself. Christians tend to use the motivation of Hell, loss of rewards, or their desire to please God as motivation. Pleasing those around us seems to be a secondary answer for them. It seems to reflect an egotistical nature which Christians immediately reject, but when two of those three elements above concern themselves, it’s difficult for them to argue.

To conclude, the only real reward for my labours in any such Heaven would be that no one is lost, that everyone is together. In any afterlife, I only wish to be with my family, loved ones, friends etc. I’m sure for atheists, agnostics who do not believe in an afterlife, if you did, your wish would follow along those lines. I shall pose five questions below for Christians to think about:

How can Christians imagine themselves claiming the Crowns of Righteousness when there is unjust punishment to non-believers and sinners? The word retribution and rehabilitation seem to be absent. A Christian cannot be righteous in the wake of such injustice.

How can a Christian claim an Incorruptible Crown when their mere values and morals have been corrupted by unjust punishment? An incorruptible soul with no sense of justice is a regression in spiritual growth.

How can a Christian claim the Crown of Life when there is a mass dose of spiritual genocide taking place depending on whether you believe in eternal torture or soul extinction? The Crown is beneficial only to you, not the lives of others. Not exactly a Crown of Life.

How can a Christian claim the Crown of Rejoicing when as mentioned above, spiritual torture or genocide is taking place? Destruction of sin is fine, but destruction of a soul, or its eternal torment warrants no such rejoicing, not if you're a human being with any sort of morals.

How can a Christian claim the Crown of Glory when the majority of Mankind is lost? There's no glory when loved ones are not there to celebrate with you.

The type of rewards one asks for often reflects the type of person they are. I’ve done some regretful things in my life, but the one thing that the dark side of Christianity has done to me is expose that despite all the sins I have done, I harbour values and principles which fundamentalist Christians rarely display. Friendship, loyalty, understanding, compassion for your fellow man.

For a final sentence to this piece:

Family, friends, close connections should be the only ‘reward’ anyone ever asks for. It’s what human beings need to survive anywhere.

So recently I realized that I'm not really a Christian anymore and that I'm more of an agnostic humanist open to the idea of a liberal, loving god. I was trying to explore my faith and make it evolve in order to answer the many questions and doubts I've had growing up with conservative Christianity. My dad is a pastor and my mom is a Sunday school director. I told them that right now that I'm trying to deepen my faith and understanding as a Christian and I told them that is why I am attending a Unitarian Universalist church. They were a little freaked out when I told them that I am visiting a UU church. In their eyes, any church that is not Bible-based and Christo-centric is a false church, a cult. They do not view UU kindly, and already are trying to proselytize me back to being a "good" Christian.

How do I tell them that I am not really a Christian anymore, that my beliefs are bigger and more loving than that narrow, condemning religion? Or should I keep my personal beliefs a secret from them? Should I keep pretending to be a Christian in front of them?

I think if I tell them that I am not a Christian, they will be heartbroken and I don't want to make them sad. But at the same time, I want them to realize how narrow-minded and unnecessarily conservative they are. I have tried to reason with them and discuss topics like the validity of the Bible, how do we know that Jesus is real, the contradictions of the Christian God (loving, unfair, and vengeful at the same time), and the possibility of no hell and instead universal salvation, etc. However, they just get flustered and come up with roundabout reasons of why the Bible is true, blablabla.

Another blogger that I have been corresponding with asked me the other day how I, as an atheist, account for the resurrection. When I was a fundamentalist, I was told that the resurrection was incontrovertible proof of the truth of Christianity, the kind of proof that cannot be ignored even by an atheist. This argument made so much sense to me at the time that I couldn't understand how an atheist could possibly explain it away. Those of you who are also from fundamentalist backgrounds may have been taught the same. So my goal here is not to upset anyone or start any debates, but simply to explain why atheists do not actually see the resurrection as proof of Christianity.

I will start with my friend's question, and then offer my (somewhat lengthy) response:

How do you, personally, account for the story of Christ's resurrection? It is fairly well documented. Do you think it was a hoax, a collective hallucination, or what? How do you account for the fact that so many of the apostles were willing to die horrible deaths for the sake of a belief in something that never happened? I'm sure you have an answer of some sort, I'm just curious as to what it is. :)

How do you account for Joseph Smith’s discovery of the golden plates? It’s quite well documented. Do you think it was a hoax, a hallucination, or what? How do you account for the fact that Joseph Smith was willing to face persecution and ultimately death for his belief in the gospel he read in the golden plates he found, and that his followers like him faced persecution and even death for the sake of a belief in something that never happened?

How do you account for David Koresh’s belief that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ? It’s quite well documented. Do you think it was a hoax, a hallucination, or what? How do you account for the fact that David Koresh was willing to face persecution and a horrible death for the sake of a belief in something that was not true, and that his followers were willing to join him in both and died a fiery death for the sake of a belief in something that was not true?

You see, it’s not just Christianity. Every religion claims its beginning in a miraculous occurrence or revelation, and in each case the religious leader and his followers are willing to face persecution or even death rather than deny their newly held religious beliefs. Joseph Smith and his followers were chased across the country, and he himself was eventually murdered, as were David Koresh and his followers. Mohammad and his followers were run out of town because of their new beliefs. Jim Jones and nine hundred of his followers committed suicide by drinking poisoned punch. Thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate group committed suicide in anticipation of the arrival of UFOs to take them to a celestial kingdom. And in all of these cases, it wasn’t just the followers who were willing to face persecution or death; it was the founders as well. So the fact that the disciples were willing to face death for their belief in the resurrection actually says nothing about whether or not their belief was true, that is, unless you are willing to assume that all the beliefs listed above were also true.

In fact, we don’t know for sure that the disciples actually did face the horrible deaths tradition says they did, because the only evidence of it is just that - tradition. There is no actual historical evidence for the disciples’ demises, just stories passed down through the years from Christian to Christian. In addition, early Christians were not actually persecuted to the extent that I was led to believe growing up. Rather than continuously having to hide or risk being thrown to the lions, as I had somehow thought, early persecution of the Christians was extremely local, and generally related either to people being upset about their relatives joining a strange new religion they viewed as an illegitimate cult or to the need to find a scapegoat for a local disaster. Other times Christians faced mob violence from other religious groups upset about losing members.

The first official persecution of Christians came in 64 AD, thirty years or so after Jesus' death, when the Christians in Rome were used as a scapegoat for a great fire that engulfed much of the city, but this sort of official persecution was both local and temporary. For the first two hundred years of Christian history, this was how Christian persecution took place - it was local and it flared up at specific moments rather than being continuous. Then, during the third century, over two hundred years after Jesus' death, official empire wide persecutions of Christians took place. The Roman Empire faced grave threats from barbarians on its borders, and the Roman leaders attributed their weakness to the fact that Christians, by now a growing percentage of the population, were refusing to honor the old Roman gods. They therefore enforced worship of the Roman gods, and those who refused to participate were killed. Official persecution of the Christians ended in 312 A.D. when Constantine called for religious freedom for the Christians in an effort to unify the empire. Then, in 395 A.D., Christianity was made the official religion of the empire, and persecution was turned on the pagans and Jews.

Documentation of the resurrection

Now, you say that the resurrection of Jesus is well documented. Actually, it is not. The only - I repeat, only - documentation of the resurrection comes from the New Testament. I think anyone can agree that a document written by the early followers of a religion is likely to be biased. Taking what the New Testament says about the resurrection at face value would be like taking the writings of Joseph Smith’s closest followers at face value, or taking the writings of David Koresh’s followers at face value, or the writings of Mohammed’s followers (the Koran) at face value. This is why I say that Joseph Smith’s discovery of the golden plates and David Koresh’s role as the reincarnated Jesus and Mohammed’s visions of the angel Gabriel are all well documented - because they are, by their followers.

Furthermore, the gospels were not written down until after 70 A.D., and not by eye witnesses. The stories recorded in the gospels had traveled as oral traditions for four decades and more, with ample time for shaping and reshaping. We really have no idea what actually happened to Jesus and his followers in Palestine in 30 A.D. All we have is oral traditions that were eventually written down forty years and more after the fact. In other words, we don’t know that there were Roman guards at the tomb, or that there was a huge stone that was rolled away, or that the authorities were concerned that the disciples might steal his body, or that one of Jesus followers encountered him outside the tomb, or that two of his followers encountered him on the road to Emmeus, or that he appeared to the eleven disciples or five hundred others. Any of that could easily have grown up over the years, as stories became embellished as stories do. We really can’t know for sure what happened.

Why did no one contradict the resurrection?

One argument I have heard for the resurrection is that these stories spread while people were still alive to contradict them. Well yes. They did. But I would make four points:

1. The ancient world didn’t have twitter or facebook or the blogosphere. They didn’t even have newspapers. It took months for news to travel, and indeed, months for people themselves to travel. If Paul was preaching the resurrection in Greece and Asia Minor, say, who was there to contradict him? His converts couldn’t google what he was telling them to see if it checked out.

2. Christianity started small, and without fanfare. It was people hiding out in basements and back alleys, not people converting all of Jerusalem overnight. What need was there to contradict that? People were worried about living, not about stopping some crazy belief their neighbor’s slave happened to hold. Plus, given the variety of crazy religious beliefs at the time, what are the odds that they would really even care?

3. Furthermore, how do we know that people didn’t contradict the stories about Jesus’ resurrection? All we have is Jesus’ followers’ side of the story, or rather, their story as shaped by four decades and more of oral tradition. We have no source of information outside of that written down by early Christians. I think it likely that early Christianity did have some nay-sayers. But guess what? Those nay-sayers have never stopped any religion. Joseph Smith had plenty of people calling him a hoax, but it didn’t stop people from following him. It was the same with Mohammed and David Koresh and essentially every other religion throughout history.

4. In addition, after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D., the Jews were scattered across the Roman Empire. The places Jesus spent his life were destroyed or changed forever, and any possibility of Jewish witnesses countering Christian claims was silenced. This was convenient, for it was not until after this point that Christianity really began to grow by leaps and bounds.

And indeed, as Christianity became more popular, voices of opposition did arise. Many of the early Christian writings we have today outside of the New Testament are those of Christian apologists seeking to counter the arguments of prominent pagan critics. These pagans did argue against the resurrection, and against basically every point of Christian doctrine. When the emperor Constantine adopted Christianity, these voices were silenced. Regardless, you have to remember that Christianity did not become popular enough to warrant any sort of major opposition until the middle of the second century, over a hundred years after Jesus’ death. By this time, however, any witnesses who might have contradicted it were long gone, and Palestine as Jesus knew it had been destroyed. It was too late to go fact checking there - the evidence was gone.

Argument from ignorance

In essence, the argument that the resurrection is the only way to explain the origins of Christianity is an argument from ignorance. It essentially says “we don’t know how early Christianity could have developed without the resurrection, therefore God.” This is the same argument that is used any time we as humans encounter something we can’t explain. Our ancestors wondered what lightening was, and concluded that it must be God. And then we figured out what it actually is. Our ancestors wondered where the seasons came from, and concluded that it must be God. And then we figured out why we actually have seasons.

Just because I don’t know every detail of how Christianity, or any other religion, was founded and gained adherents does not mean that I should conclude “therefore, God.” It just means I don’t know. The fact that we don’t know exactly how Christianity started doesn’t bother me. Similarly, the fact that we don’t know how belief in the Greek and Roman Gods started doesn’t bother me, nor does the fact that we don’t know exactly how Hinduism started, or that we don’t know how exactly Mohammad came up with his new teachings, and on and on.

Possible Explanations

Now while it does not bother me that I don’t know exactly how the story of the resurrection originated, I can at the same time think of plenty of possibilities for how it could have happened. One possibility is that after Jesus was buried the Romans dug up his body and destroyed it hoping to keep his grave from becoming a tomb, and then the disciples found an empty tomb and concluded that he must have risen from the dead. The Romans might have tried to counter it at that point, but the disciples could have accused them of lying, especially if they had already disposed of the body. Another possibility is that there was a mixup about where Jesus was to be buried and the disciples went to the wrong place, and found an empty tomb. Or perhaps the Romans decided at the last minute to dispose of the body themselves. It's quite possible that the Romans didn't think anything of the issue once Jesus, whom they had likely feared was contributing to unrest or plotting subversion, was dead, and therefore didn't feel the need to counter rumors that he had risen from the dead, or maybe they didn’t hear of the rumors until much later. It's possible that the Romans' custom was to dispose of the bodies of the crucified themselves, and that the disciples, or perhaps even just one of them, hallucinated a vision of Jesus, and concluded that he had raised from the dead, and that the empty tomb story itself simply grew up later. There is an endless list of possibilities.

And really, new religious movements are not that hard to start. While in college, I actually became involved in a group that was on its way to becoming a cult. We had a leader, we had visions and revelations from God, we even saw demons and worked to cast them out. We believed that we were about to bring about a Christian awakening that would spread first to our college campus and then to the rest of the nation. But it wasn’t real. In the end, it turned out that our leader had mental problems and had to be medicated. Caught up in religious fervor, we imagined the whole thing, and were positive that what was happening was real. But it wasn’t. This sort of thing has happened again and again and again throughout history. Joseph Smith, Jim Jones, Heaven’s Gate, David Koresh, Mohammed, and, yes, I would argue, even early Christianity.

Conclusion

I find it interesting that so many Christians seem to think that the resurrection is some sort of infallible proof of the truth of Christianity. To atheists, the entire idea that the resurrection might be an argument for the existence of God seems strange. I think the difference centers on the fact that the Christian believes that the New Testament is infallible and inerrant while the atheist does not. You can’t prove the truth of your religion using only documents written by followers of your religion. It doesn’t work that way. It’s circular. The Bible is inspired because Christianity is true, Christianity is true because the Bible says so. No. You have to prove it using something outside of the Bible. And when it comes to the resurrection, there simply is no documentation outside of the New Testament. Furthermore, in making this argument the Christian also forgets that every religion starts with some sort of revelation or miraculous happening, and that members of essentially every new religious movement across time have faced persecution and even death for their beliefs. If I must accept that Christianity is true because the disciples would not have died for a lie, then I must accept that every religion is true. And I don’t think it works that way.

This serene and somewhat uneventful evening finds me listening to commentary on various theological debates while gazing upon the few empty beer bottles laid waste in front of me. My not quite “drunk”, but ever so slightly unreserved, state emboldens me so that I am convinced it is advisable to pen my musings on a topic I have been contemplating for the past few months. Fairly recently it appears it has become fashionable for religion, Christianity in particular, to append the adjective “reasonable” to a selected form of faith. In fact, William Lane Craig has actually authored a book with a title that conjoins the opposing concepts of reason and faith to form the epitome of an oxymoron. I must admit that I have not read the aforementioned book; this article is not intended to refute any of the points contained within Dr. Craig’s book. I have gleaned enough of Dr. Craig’s philosophy from his public debates to conclude that I have no interest in reading any of his writings. My goal in writing this article is simply to examine a few basic doctrines of Christianity to determine if they can in fact be deemed reasonable. As I stand perplexed by apologists’ claims that belief in Christianity is entirely reasonable, a few simple questions that I would like to posit come to mind. My intention is for each question I propose for every specific dogma to serve as a sort of litmus test in order to see if the belief holds up under scrutiny. Let us take a few moments to ponder some core beliefs of Christianity and determine for ourselves if they are reasonable or irrational.

In order to establish the criteria for determining what dogmas can be declared reasonable, we should first define reason. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines reason as follows:

reason - a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense; especially : something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact

From the above definition, we can justifiably conclude that any reasonable doctrine must be logically coherent. As such, no doctrine that is defined as reasonable should require the employment of absolute blind faith in order to establish its validity. For argument’s sake, I will grant that a proposition without directly contradicting evidence or arguments can be tentatively accepted as somewhat reasonable, although it must be accepted in some sense on faith. However, any dogma that is demonstrably fallacious must be discarded as wholly unreasonable.

Countless times I have been subjected to a sweating, riled up, Pentecostal preacher shouting with enthusiasm his profession of faith in mid sermon. This declaration of belief often contained the statement that Jesus Christ was “both fully God and fully man”. Although I suspect that many pastors I have heard make this profession were unaware of its origin, it is perfectly supported by the Chalcedonian Creed (451 AD). However, consensus among church leaders does not necessarily prove a doctrine to be perfectly reasonable. I contend that the characteristics of fully God and fully man are actually mutually exclusive by their very nature. In order to solidify my position, I would like to ask a very simple question. Was Jesus CAPABLE of sin? The answers “yes” and “no” are entirely comprehensive, therefore the Law of Excluded Middle prohibits any cleverly construed middle ground. If the reader asserts that Jesus was not capable of sin, then I say it is impossible that he was fully human. By biblical definition, human nature is inherently sinful (Gensis 6:5, Psalm 14:1-3, Romans 3:23). If Jesus was actually incapable of sin, then he could not have been fully human because he did not share the curse of original sin and sinful nature alongside the rest of humanity. Suppose the believer argues that Jesus was in fact capable of sin, but that he abstained from it. I would then argue that it is entirely impossible that he was fully God. The defining line between humans and God is supposedly that God is incapable of sin (James 1:13, Hebrews 6:18). The notion of being fully human and fully divine is a paradox. On the basis of logic, the belief in the simultaneous humanity and deity of Jesus must be disregarded because it is completely nonsensical.

The second doctrine I would like to challenge is that concerning the eternal destination of the souls of those ignorant of the gospel, through no fault of their own. According to fundamentalist Protestant beliefs, every soul will spend eternity in either Heaven or Hell (for this article, I will neglect to consider the Catholic belief in Purgatory). One must be completely foolish or willfully deluded in order to deny that countless people have lived and died without ever hearing even the name Jesus. So I ask, are the souls of these people sent to Heaven or Hell? Again, I perceive my question to only allow for two entirely comprehensive possibilities. One must concede that those ignorant of the gospel are either sent to Heaven or Hell. If the believer affirms that these poor souls are indeed condemned to the tortures of Hell, then I argue that God has to be a sadist. Although I’m sure this belief poses no real difficulty for the Calvinists, most reasonable people could never conceive of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god that would predestine anyone for the tortures of Hell without AT LEAST presenting them with the chance for salvation. If God allowed people to live and die without providing them with the opportunity for salvation, one would be forced to conclude that he created those people solely for the purpose of sentencing them to Hell. All of human history has failed to produce a better example of sadism. If, on the contrary, the believer asserts that those ignorant of the gospel are admitted into Heaven by default, I would argue that he/she has unwittingly negated the foundation of the entire Christian belief system. The idea that God grants salvation to those ignorant of Jesus insinuates that Jesus’ coming and death were entirely unnecessary! If God is indeed capable of granting salvation to those who have not heard of Jesus, then the need for redemption and reconciliation is negated. What purpose could the coming of Jesus have served? The only logical conclusion I can draw is that Jesus must have come simply so God could punish those who knowingly reject him. However, this would directly contradict John 3:17. Clearly, either answer to my question seems to require the employment of fatally flawed logic. So once more, another dogma must be disregarded because it is absolutely unreasonable.

The next issue I would like to scrutinize deals with the relationship between the Christian God and objective morality. Believers often make the claim that objective morality only exists if God exists. Debate centered on the existence of objective morality has been carried out to great lengths amongst philosophers and theologians for centuries. It seems that the issue has become obfuscated such that both sides of the debate can easily become frustrated. I assert that Christianity is challenged with the dilemma of determining whether behaviors are good because God commands them, or if God commands behaviors because they are good. If the believer affirms the latter, then the argument could be made that objective morality does exist. However, if the believer asserts that the former is true, then there would be no objective basis for morality. Morality would be entirely contingent upon the whims of God, therefore it would be subjective. I think the debate over the relationship between God and morality can be laid to rest quite easily. Simply ask the believer if he/she could brutally murder at the behest of God. If the believer responds by claiming that God would never give such a command, I would argue that they cleverly side stepped my question. What he/she actually answered was “Do you believe God would ever command you to kill?” and my original question still stands unanswered. The logic of that answer would be completely unfounded anyway since God did in fact order countless murders in the Bible. If the believer is bold enough to respond that they would rebel against such a command, then it is clear that the basis for morality exists independently of God. If the believer confirms that he/she would follow God’s order, then it is clear to any unbiased observer that God is grossly insufficient as a basis for objective morality. (As a side note, I would advise that any believer who answers in the latter manner be subjected to psychiatric evaluation.)

The final dogma that I will examine deals with the nature and authority of the Bible. The foundation of fundamentalist Christianity is grounded in the belief that the Bible is God’s holy word to man. The skeptic usually inquires as to how the determination that the Bible is actually God’s word can be made with such confidence. Most commonly, believers reply by appealing to the Bible’s supposed inerrancy. As one who has read a considerable amount of the Bible, I stand puzzled by this claim. It appears that once again a paradox has been imposed by a fundamentalist claim. The argument for scriptural authority seems to be presented from both perspectives: The Bible is God’s word because it is inerrant. There are no errors in the Bible because God does not err. Anyone even remotely acquainted with biblical criticism can see that the Bible contains a myriad of biological, historical, cosmological, and internally contradictory errors. Apologists’ attempts to rationalize most of these errors through unfathomable mental gymnastics gives testament to the fact that inerrancy is only based on the presumption that the Bible is God’s word. The claims for the Bible’s inerrancy and divine inspiration are entirely codependent. Neither of the claims can be proven independently of the other. The argument for scriptural authority commits the ultimate intellectual sin of employing circular reasoning. Although the term does contain the word “reasoning”, circular reasoning cannot be employed in order to assert that a belief is reasonable. Belief in the divine authority of the Bible is entirely based on blind faith, therefore it is not reasonable.

In a free society, everyone should be allowed to have whatever measure of faith they so choose. However, a certain degree of indignation from skeptics should be expected when Christians make the assertion that their faith is reasonable. What is implied is that rejection of Christian dogma is done so on unreasonable grounds. This is not the case. Reason refutes Christianity at every turn. If Christians (or followers of any religion) choose to have faith, that is their prerogative. I would simply advise that they have the courage to admit that their belief system is based on faith and divorce themselves from the masquerade of reason. In closing, I would like to recall some of Martin Luther’s words on reason:

“Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but—more frequently than not—struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

“Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom… Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism… She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.”

It occured to me recently that while xtians are often the ones to tell a nonbeliever that he/she can have no moral code without their biblegod, they are really the ones who have no reason to be moral. Their doctrine asserts that as long as one believes in christ as the way to god, they will go to heaven.

I have a few xtian friends who believe "Once saved/Always saved." Regardless, the notion that xtians aren't perfect, just forgiven, is a belief that gives them no reason to be accoutable for anything at all. It's carte blanche to do whatever to whomever and not have to feel guilty. A few well placed tears to appease a scowling congregation and all is forgiven. If this is the worst punishment, then why not lie, steal, cheat, and so forth? Typically I have found the the remorse is shortlived and it's off to satisfy the old lusts of the flesh again. As Britney says, "Oops I did it again." They don't give a fig for their behaviour in this life as they believe its the next life that matters.

Nonbelievers, however, tend to realize that it's this life that matters, cuz it's the only one. If all you leave is the heading on a tombstone, you wouldn't want it to read "Here Lies Bob Smith...what an asshole!" Nonbelievers (for the most part), I think, are more appreciative of this life and what it really means when a person does pass away. We strive to be kind in this life because it makes us feel good and makes those around us feel good.

It was only after I left xtianity that I began to try and police myself to be a better person. I feel true empathy for people now, especially for those I read about on this website who struggle to leave xtianity. These are the people who are trying to stand on their own, become real and become accountable.

I was hoping tremendously that I was not alone here and thank goodness I know that I'm not. From the very beginning I knew that I was different and was not made for conformity even if that was in the nature of religion-something that's been passed down through many generations of my family. I don't blame my mother and grandmother for teaching me what they taught. It's what was taught to them. But they weren't born or built for something different and I understand that now and can't expect them to understand or even accept my choice. It's taken me countless times of doubting, confusion and research over the years to know and be comfortable with the decision to go against the grain of my surroundings and say, "You know what, I just don't believe and can't believe what you're teaching and saying to me. I know you have good intentions but I'd rather use my brain, think for myself and not be force fed something that doesn't sit well in my stomach."

There is an unusual peace that comes about when you free your mind about something you have been battling for years. I recently told my mother that this is not where my peace comes from and if anything it has brought me misery, so now it's time to find my peace of mind. I think Christianity and other religions belittle the amazing power that we all have but don't realize we have because we've been taught that there is some deity out there to "cast our cares upon". Doesn't it seem to you that that is a way of saying to not deal with the issue? How else can you know your own ability to take charge of your life, mind, body and heart? I just want to take some responsibility for what ever happens in my life and feel so good about myself when I "dig" myself out of a situation or handled it with peace and confidence that came from ME.

Living in the South is hard enough when the majority are hypocritical christians and I'm a lesbian on top of it so you can imagine the grief I get on a day to day basis. I'm pretty much of a loner but the mentality of those around me don’t give much of a choice. Once in a while I can find a few to talk with every now and then, but because I march to the beat of my own drum, I stand out and that's practically not accepted around here. But one day, I will truly recover from all of the brainwashing over the years and be the beautiful woman that I know is hiding in me somewhere.

Somewhere in the squirrels-on-crack illogic of Christian lay apologetics can be found a concept most bizarre: Biblegod as a "perfect" being.

After listening to various believers prattle on about their imaginary friend, I came to the conclusion that a lot of Christians have a frightfully low standard for "perfection."

Let's start with Genesis, Chapter 2 and the Garden of Eden fable. Somehow Mr. Perfect thought it would be a good idea to put two magic trees in the Garden but specifically prohibit the tenants from enjoying the fruit of Tree #2. As any sane parent knows, it's a bad idea to bake cookies and leave them on a plate on the coffee table, then tell the kids "Ah-ah-ah! Don't touch!"

And after the kids have been caught with chocolate smears on their faces and cookie crumbs all over the living room rug, no sane parent would toss the kids out on the street and hire an armed security guard to keep the kids from coming back in.

Don't even start with that Talking Snake™ business -- If there was a Talking Snake™ in Your house, exhorting toddlers to eat cookies, play with the pretty bottles under the kitchen sink or order Babylonian porn videos on Your credit card, You'd be phoning every pest control place in town to get Yourself a good snake trap.

Biblegod deliberately let things go to hell in a handbasket to "test" Adam and Eve, knowing full well that they would fail the test (in which case its morality is flawed).

Either way, this is not a coherent or useful representation of a "perfect" being.

Now, let's talk about forgiveness... Or rather, the lack of forgiveness exhibited by the god of the Bible. Let's start with Eden: Instead of expelling Adam and Eve for an action that they could not take back, why didn't Biblegod use the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as a teachable moment?

Specifically in the Christian reinterpretation of Genesis, which spawned the absurd and unconscionable concept of Original Sin: Why didn't Biblegod start fresh with the new generation, or wipe out Adam and Eve and start again without magic trees and Talking Snakes™?

Why the emphasis on blood sacrifice? Why the incessant wars against unbelieving nations? Why the winner-takes-all brawl in the book of Revelation?

No, Biblegod is not "perfect" in any meaningful sense. He also seems to carry grudges for an unreasonably long period of time.

My question to our Christian visitors is this: If you wouldn't put up with this kind of behaviour from your next-door-neighbour, why do you tolerate it as part of your religious beliefs? Surely you can do better than this.

I find myself tempted to debate some of the fallacies brought up; but I feel that there is not merit to it.

You accuse Christians of close mindednes; but are you not as exclusive in your thinking as well? In forsaking thought of God or any supernatural intervention, it automatically makes your mind open; but excluding liberal atheistic ideology consequently makes the individual close minded?

Biased thinking? I believe so. There is an apparent contradiction. To be open to one thing, you quite likely will be closed to another; and to judge which is closed and which is open is subject to the individual's opinion. If you deny the existence of God than you must acknowledge the presence of another being(which in most cases is the individual) or else a different ideology. You accuse God and Christians of contradictions; but I suggest you address the apparent fallacies in your own ideology.

I think about my childhood a lot these days, now that I'm getting older. I remember a lot of happy times before I got all wrapped up in worldly ideas. My family was good to me, cared for me and taught me to appreciate the many good things life has to offer.

When I got older and ventured out on my own I was unprepared for a lot of the difficulties I faced. I wanted to get married and have my own children, do good work and continue to enjoy life. I was always willing to do as much as I could to make other people happy, had a good work ethic and looked forward to many things that seemed to me to be perfectly within reach.

I tried to pursue the "American dream" the way it was presented to me by my friends, by teachers, by television; but I have found that a great deal of what I had been taught about life was contrary to reality as I understood it. I assumed there was something wrong with me since I didn't seem to be as secure as the people around me. I couldn't conceive of the idea that other people were just as insecure as I am, worried about their lives, worried about their mortality, frequently disillusioned and often plagued by disappointments in spite of very good intentions as well as their own best efforts. I would look around, see all the things that people were doing in order to create a sense of "normalcy" and assume that they knew precisely what they were doing, that everything they did was with good reason, that wise and time honored traditions upheld everything in society for a host of good reasons.

I used to look at religious groups and admire the fact that they seemed to have such a strong sense of community and dedication to high moral principles. When they tried to teach me about religion, however, and when I made my own investigations, read their books, attended their services and so forth, though, I could not find the connection between their beliefs and their behaviors. Virtually all of what they tried to impress upon me about the Bible, Jesus, God and the churches made no sense to me at all. I didn't rebel against their teachings, was merely profoundly confused. I blamed myself for being unable to find the "logic" that they understood which was supposed to tie their beliefs together with principles like charity and self-sacrifice. I believed in the principles and still do.

I continued in my pursuit of the "good life", marriage and family, honest work and so forth; but one thing after another collapsed. I gave as much as I could to my first marriage--more than I should have, I believe. I fell into financial ruin more than once. I became estranged from my children. I missed my family, but, like so many people I know, felt obliged to "make it on my own." I wound up in psychiatric care several times, was perscribed a series of different medications, developed problems with my health, went through a phase where I drank heavily and wound up seeking help from doctors, therapists and groups like AA.

Eventually I turned to religion as the only solution I could concieve of to all of the problems I was dealing with, since none of my best efforts to adapt to the world around me were doing any good. When I began to move in this direction and talk to other people there were, of course, many, many people in the recovery movement and in organized religious groups who highly encouraged me and promised with great fervor that I was making the right choices, that I was finally on the correct path, that I would be happier and more fulfilled than I ever had been, even in my childhood, and more than I could possibly imagine. There were so many people eager to persuade me that religion was the right choice that, once again, I assumed that if many, many people agreed about it that they could not be wrong, misguided or dishonest about it, and that if I continued to have personal problems it could only be because of my own inability to grasp what everyone else understood and correctly apply it.

Eventually I became a Christian. I was motivated partly by faith, partly by fear. At first I was very happy. I felt as though I had finally made a connection to other human beings based on love, mutual acceptance and understanding. I looked forward to all of the mystical experiences, revelations, miracles that were undoubtably going to occur in my life. I worried less about mortality, about the concepts of success and failure, financial insecurity, about having to devote my time to the pursuit of any kind of knowledge other than what was required in order to convey my new found beliefs, ceased worrying so much about the human condition in terms of our impact on the world around us and more in terms of our spiritual condition as individuals. Life seemed more simple for a while, though I continued to have many of the same problems, or worse, with regard to my security, finances, relationships and so forth, though not for lack of trying, as I always had, to do my best. At least I was able to find a way to escape the anxiety by assuring myself that it was all happening for a good reason, that somehow, on a grand scale, it was all for the best.

As time went on, however, my anxiety returned. I began to feel more and more restless and concerned that I was once again the only fellow on Earth who didn't have a good bead on things since none of what was promised seemed to be coming to pass. I was in a constant state of tension, worrying about offending a God I could not seem to stop fearing and a devil who also seemed to have the upper hand, to be constantly there to undermine my best efforts to be humble, faithful, charitable, and who seemed to be causing disaster in every corner of the world where violence and hypocrisy seemed to reign.

During this time I took the idea of self-sacrifice to such extremes that very often my peers tried to convince me I was taking the concept too literally. I was giving in actuality more of my meager income to several churches, to charities, to needy people than I could reasonably afford. I actually gave my money and possessions away to the extent that I had to panhandle more than once when stranded. I gave nearly all of my time to volunteer activities. I brought people home with me and shared everything I had. My family and friends were often concerned about me and worried that I was taking terrible risks. No amount of good deeds, however, nor personal risk seemed adequate to me though. I was simply trying to follow the literal teachings, as I understood them, of Jesus; and they seemed to be rather obvious: give away everything and trust God.

My confusion grew deeper and deeper over the fact that no one at all seemed to support this concept. My family, of course, were alarmed that I was not taking good enough care of myself. My secular friends, who believed as much in the idea of charity as any religious people I knew, were eager to assure me that I was a decent human being, that I didn't need to go to such extremes. Religious people were even more baffling since on the one hand they agreed that I was going to unnecessary extremes, and on the other admonished me for being too "prideful" and attempting to "earn my salvation" rather than simply admitting I was a sinner, that only an unquestioning belief in a series of stories about Jesus' immaculate conception, power to perform miracles and resurrection could ever bring me redemption and peace and encouraged me as much as everyone else to stop being so charitable.

I couldn't stop. I couldn't imagine a "compromise" between total self-sacrifice, the very definition of love, supposedly the very core of Chrisianity, and self indulgence. How was I supposed to set some boundary there and just go back to the good old "American way?" How was I supposed to ever feel good about just making and spending money, ignoring the needs of other people, especially since I had spent so much time and effort dealing with people who had such serious problems first hand? How was I to just put that out of mind and not feel like a total hypocrite?

Eventually I became more and more estranged from my religious peers who were so friendly at the outset but grew more and more critical of me the more familiar they became with me. The more I spoke from my heart, the more I endeavored to be as honest and open as I could be, the more I admitted my shortcomings--the more I applied everything I was being taught--the more estranged I seemed to become from the entire group. I didn't seem to be able to speak the same language anymore. In one sense, I seemed to know what I should say and do in order to be accepted by my religious peers, but on the other I couldn't help but try to be honest. I seemed to offend other religious people at every turn.

I remember attending purity meetings as well as bible studies many times each week. The purity meetings were baffling to me. The idea was to talk about sex problems and learn about chastity (a very confusing concept since it is supposed to be a condition of absence of lust, but not necessarily celibacy). Men and women met in seperate groups to discuss their problems and seek solutions from the Bible and other religious books. I found, however, that none of the other men in my group could even admit that they masturbated, would talk about electronics, work and all sorts of subjects which had nothing to do with sex in any way. I took the leader of the group aside and expressed my confusion about this. I told him that I was perfectly willing to talk openly about all of my sexual experiences, no matter how emberassing, because I believed that, though many of my experiences were sordid and "sinful", they were completely common. He agreed and encouraged me to speak openly; but, since even he thoroughly avoided talking in any detail about his experiences and concerns I didn't feel secure enough to share my own. I wasn't afraid to be honest, but was afraid of being ostracized further. I just couldn't bear to sit there and have these men pretend they could not completely relate to my telling the truth because they were not as secure about themselves as I had become due to thorough and honest self-examination and confession of every detail of my history prior to attending the group.

Finally, if there is anything I can't stand for very long it's being afraid all of the time. There comes a point for me where I would be willing to suffer the worst kind of pain in order to shed the torment of always being afraid and uncertain. I simply could not stand the state I was in, worrying about "salvation", worrying about all of the crazy contradictions--especially the idea that I should follow the teachings of Jesus, do what he said to do and be completely charitable, but at the same time stop being so charitable because it was vanity. I couldn't win, couldn't do the right thing, think the right thing, believe the right thing, since at every turn the rules kept changing.

I got sick of being afraid. I got tired of being the "only one" who didn't "get it." I could no longer continue to blame myself for a lot of really bad treatment on the part of others who always seemed to be convinced they were right about everything, were quick to criticize, who seemed to be getting away with everything contrary to what they were telling me to do without appearing to be as conflicted, self-conscious and self-negating as I was. Finally, I grew willing to challenge even God himself to put an end to the misery.

That's when I began to thoroughly question everything I had been exposed to in great detail but never analyzed. I started listening more objectively. I reread the Bible again, cover to cover, and allowed for at least the possibility that it was fallible. I set aside my fear of "offending" God in this fashion and really searched myself for honest answers about what I believed.

I listened to sermons where priests and pastors paraphrased things in terms that made no literal sense at all. They described things that everyone arround me seemed to regard as common sense but that, to my ears, were completely nonsensical. When I reread the Bible and paid attention more deeply to the things that really troubled me I found that they also made no literal sense. There are passages, particularly in the New Testament, for example, that I simply can not believe, due to the extreme variation in the style of narrative, are supposed to have been written by the same hand during the same time frame. For example, anyone who reads Acts and doesn't have serious reservations about whether this was written anywhere near the same era during which the other chapters were supposed to have been written or that it contains any believable "historical" accuracy must be working very hard to suspend their disbelief.

To make a long story short, I'm glad I went through these troubling times and became thoroughly apostate. I have come to realize that I have on the one hand misunderstood a great deal about life and people since I could not comprehend that everyone else is just as confused about the times we live in as I am but afraid to admit it (lest they too become ostracized for being completely honest), that a whole host of the problems we face are of our own making, are arbitary and contary to living in harmony with our environment and each other, that a lot of our very "best" ideas are harming ourselves, each other and the planet we live on, and on the other hand have been seeking an escape from the human condition by various means ever since I ventured away from my family and struck out on my own.

I am not afraid to be different anymore. I'm not afraid to follow whatever path in life makes the most sense to me. I'm not afraid to be myself. I'm not afraid of being misunderstood. I'm not afraid of dying--and, especially, even if there is a God, I don't believe that means I am so important, nor that any of my experiences (though I treasure my fondest memories, especially of loved ones and friends and all of the one of a kind and irreplaceable experiences I have had) are so important, that when I die I must somehow become immmortal and my selfhood preserved for all eternity. When I die I may cease to exist and never experience the perfect bliss that Christians promise I would have in their imaginary Heaven, but on the other hand I will also certainly know no pain, no loss, no fear, no worry, no regret, no loneliness, no sorrow. I welcome oblivion. Also, if by chance whatever matter and energy that has been a part of me becomes a part of some other living creature of any kind somewhere in the universe that has its own consciousness and life to live, no matter how inhuman the creature happens to be or where it lives in the wide universe, though near eternity should pass in the meantime, it will be only an instant between one life and the next.

My life, my loves, my experiences are important to me. I cherish all of the good things I have experienced and look forward to more; but when I am gone I will be simply irrelevant, along with everything I have ever felt or thought or known. Life is for the living. Death is the end of life. I don't need religion to escape from this inevitability anymore because I no longer find it horrifying to completely face and accept it.

I have found, finally, the freedom I have been unable to find for so long in my adult life from a great deal of uncertainty which has prevented me from making choices I can live with no matter the outcome and forgive myself for the fact that life most often does not go according to plan. I don't have to pretend that I have any idea what is best for anyone other than myself. I don't have to hide the truth about myself from other people, nor have to apologize for myself at ever turn. I don't have to believe anything at all just because billions of people swear by it. I can believe that billions of people can be thoroughly wrong about a great many things, especially since we are all here for but a very short time, too short to find all the answers to every question in life. Finally, I don't much care about "beliefs" in general since they are definitely not facts, are by definition not facts and have absolutely no power to change things in any way all by themselves, only inhabit the mind. Frankly, I heard the word "believe" so often as a Christian that I am thoroughly sick of it and strenuously avoid using it anymore myself.

I am still afraid of all sorts of other things, like being left out in the cold by other people if I don't conform to popular beliefs and behaviors that I can not accept for myself. I wish I could be myself and honest at all times and expect to be welcomed by many people much of the time, but understand that in this life I will have at best a handful of people in whom I can fully confide, that they will come and go and sometimes disappear forever. I wish I could share everything I have with anyone who needs some portion and expect the same; but I know I can not expect the same and will go hungry if I try. These are things I can not change and must accept. If I were God I would certainly change all of that. If the Christians were right about the God they believe in I expect God would have changed all of that already as well. There is no reason whatsoever that the God they describe would lack the power to change everything; and there is simply no logic to support the ridiculous notion that "He" wouldn't do so if "He" was the all powerful, infinite, perfect, infallible, omnipresent and omniscient creator of all things "He" also permeates, as well as the embodiment of love.

All of the mental gymnastics in the world can not equate Christian beliefs with reason or sanity. It makes me sad that so many generations of people have been victimized by this insanity, that the people who fall under the sway of Christian institutions for generation after generation exist to serve those institutions rather than the other way around. I find it so sad that people are in such full flight from reality that they are willing to martyr themselves in order to perpetuate these institutions and even expand their influence to include people in places around the world where Christianity has been mercifully absent. It is worse than an opiate. It is a plague on humanity.

For the first 18 years of my life I’ve been immersed into the Christian faith. I’ve been baptized, dedicated, and was known as a covenant child. Every person in my family is a god fearing saint, every person except for yours truly. For one thing I have had issues with my religion every second of every loathing-sobbing-thrashing day of my life. I never really connected with God and Jesus the way I thought I was supposed to, I felt inadequate because I was a woman and I spent my days praying to desire God and guilt ridden when I continued to fall short. It still hurts. Six years ago I was at every prayer breakfast, youth group, missions trip and biblical retreat doing my best to “defy humanity”—but in doing so I was the most miserable person I knew. Two suicide attempts, two psych evaluations, two semesters at Bible college, two Rob Bell books, and one broken engagement later I am a new person, all my own for the first time; and I am the happiest I have ever been.

I don’t not believe in God, but I don’t necessarily believe in him either, thus I secretly claim agnosticism. This puts me between a rock and a hard place right now because there is nothing in my life to depend on, I have no comfort. Being a deeply spiritual person I think that not believing in something just because we don’t understand it is idiotic and I think that unexplainable wonderful things happen to us ever day.

According to my family I am “lost” or “gullible” or “arrogant”, when I’m really just Bethany. I realized the normalcy of “The God who surpasses all understanding” was weird, kind of creepy, and all of the people who use that statement seem to think they understand God quite well; I also realize that I have spent 80 percent of my life brainwashed.

As anyone can imagine this has drawn huge lines between my family and I. I am one of seven children, in a very close religious family. Even my stoned-sour-crack-addict-delinquent cousin is better than I am because he sits in those pews every Sunday and sings as loud as he can to those hymns. I love my family so much and I don’t know what I would do without them—but I hate being an outcast. I hate what Christianity has done to my relationships. Let me confirm that I am a pacifist by nature as well as by heart. I do not and will not hate Christianity itself. I think that having faith and acknowledging that there are purposes greater than that of our own small lives is a beautiful thing, and I think it has done as much amazing good in lives just as it has bad. But it’s a bittersweet symphony when it makes me sick to my core. I get nauseas when I walk into a church and when I hear or see a Bible verse I am consumed with bitterness, I hate myself when I am associated with that life.

So I am not a Christian. I believe that the bible is a very old, misinterpreted and overrated book. I love life and people and I am a good person apart from Christ—stronger as well. My boyfriend has had a very different experience with religion and doesn’t understand me. My family gives every effort to pull me back in with them, to extreme extents. The friends I have left don’t discuss it with me under any circumstance; I am alone.

I need help, support, anyone to tell me that I’m not going to burn a torturous death. I go back to my beginning statement and wonder if this is even worth it. I would die for any of the above listed people in a heartbeat, so I wonder if fighting so hard for my own happiness is right. I carry so much shame now, shame and fear. Am I making a huge mistake?

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